Kobe inspires an OC school

Kobe Bryant shouldn’t take this the wrong way, but he’s been a partial inspiration for a 12-18 basketball team.

Of course, that team was once 1-9.

“He comes over here and works out during the summer and during the season, too,” UC Irvine coach Pat Douglass said. “He’s reached out to some of our guys. I think they see what he does and they realize what it takes to be great. I mean, he gets after it.”

The Anteaters had not won two games in succession until they beat Cal State Northridge and Hawaii on Feb. 18 and 21. Now they’ve won four of five and are 8-8 in the Big West, heading into the league tournament that begins at the Anaheim Convention Center on Wednesday.

Ryan Badrtalei, the UCI basketball operations director, meets Bryant at Crawford Hall some mornings at 5:30 a.m. Douglass has seen Bryant lifting weights at the university’s recreation center, even on game days.

“He’s great with little kids, too,” Douglass said. “I was playing golf one day with a guy I didn’t know, and Kobe’s name came up and I was talking about what a good guy he is, and for the next two holes this guy was going on and on about how he didn’t like him. Sometimes golf can be like work. It was that day.”

The Anteaters lost to Idaho, 101-47, on Nov. 28, a feat previously believed impossible.

Freshman Eric Wise emerged, Brett Lauer went on to lead the league in 3 point shooting percentage, and Kevin Bland produced 10 points and 7.2 boards in the middle.

“I think they’ve done their best,” Douglass said. “Sometimes you have real talented teams and you have expectations, and you get disappointed. I don’t think I’ve ever had a team that was more enjoyable to coach and got the most out of what it had.”

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